Nothing illustrates how far Left the Democratic Party has moved than the reaction of the Democrats’ most popular and media savvy politicians to the news that Amazon was abandoning plans to build part of its East Coast headquarters in the New York city of Long Island City.

Ted Cruz got the problem and the language of crony government right during last night’s Fox Business debate. Just as conservatives must be alert and avoid using the language of the Left as we discuss the issues, we should also be alert to who among the candidates uses the language of the Left and defines “crony capitalism,” rather than “crony government” as the problem.

Ted Cruz just raised the bar for Republican presidential hopefuls angling for the fiery populist mantle. In a 40-minute speech delivered to a friendly crowd at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday, the junior senator from Texas inveighed against a corrupt alignment of corporate and political power that he shorthanded as the “Washington Cartel.”

Senator Ted Cruz has weighed in on Washington cronyism with a powerful speech at the Heritage Foundation that we think every American should see. “Washington has done a great job of one thing – picking winners and losers,” said Senator Ted Cruz, “except it’s clear each time who the losers are: it’s American families... What’s happening in Washington is no accident... It is a concerted effort by corporate lobbyists and establishment politicians. Lobbyists and career politicians make up the Washington Cartel."

Yesterday, the Charles Koch Institute hosted a panel discussion on the cost of government cronyism – and the numbers were truly astonishing. Yet, the consensus or “top takeaways” of the panel were that taxpayers have no idea what government cronyism really costs them, how pervasive it is and how it distorts the economy by using politics and political connections, instead of free markets, to pick winners and losers.

Billionaire tech mogul and pop technologist Elon Musk says none of the taxpayer incentives his businesses receive are necessary, "but they are all helpful." Helpful might be an understatement, with its lobbying expenses and Musk’s campaign contributions, SpaceX will enjoy more than a 3,000 percent return on its investment in Texas’ political process if it decides to build its new launch facilities in Brownsville – not bad in an environment where beating a 6% rate of return is considered very difficult for the average small business.

Senator Rand Paul is right – it is not the size of government or crony capitalists, but “crony government” that is the problem. Unless Republicans become the party of “limited government” there will be little to entice limited government constitutional conservatives to vote for them again in 2016.